The Cold, Hard Truth about
Working From Home

By Renee Malove for Work-From-Home.org

While the words “working mother” may be completely oxymoronic, if you are attempting to raise children while working outside the home you know that the words signify a task that is virtually super heroic; the ability to maintain a life and a career outside the home while at the same time maintaining a close relationship with your children and your spouse, attend athletic practices and ballet recitals, class picnics and PTA meetings and keep a clean house (with clean dishes and clean clothes and everything!)-and keep your sanity at the same time! This is an incredible position to ask anyone to fill, and there are many who have decided to say that enough is enough.

If you have had your fill of the rat race and want to find a way to make an income while at the same time spending time with your children and not struggling to keep your head afloat over your daily to-do list, then you may want to consider joining the ranks of the thousands of moms that have bid a fond farewell to corporate America and begun working from home.

There is nothing to compare with the moment when everything finally starts flowing smoothly and you’re able to sit at your computer in the middle of a hard day’s work and watch your children quietly entertaining themselves on the floor at your feet.

The Pros

This is not a decision that should be made lightly; there are a number of factors which must be considered. The advantages of working from home are obvious; no longer will you have to deal with the morning rush of bundling your children off to day care while simultaneously dressing yourself in your business-like best and hoping your stockings didn’t run when the dog decided he couldn’t wait another minute to sink his teeth into the dog biscuit you were holding when Aunt Sarah decided to call and say hello. No longer will there be guilt-filled days when your child has an ear infection or other miscellaneous malady and you were forced to drop them off at their grandparents because you had a meeting you couldn’t miss. There will never be another morning when you have to listen to your two year old scream as their day care teacher disentangles them from your arms with promises that they’ll be fine as soon as you leave (even though you secretly know that years later you’re going to be getting the therapy bill for this.)

Finally you will have the opportunity to be the parent you always wanted to be while at the same not feeling as though your spouse is being forced to carry your burdens as well as their own (admit it, as much as you’d love to toss the working world aside completely there would always be a feeling of guilt every time that your husband had to work overtime just to make ends meet) or, if you are a single parent, accepting charity from miscellaneous friends and family in order to keep food on the table. The truth is that working from home is incredibly rewarding. You can still help to support your family and give yourself the sense of satisfaction that establishing yourself in your career brings while at the same time enjoying all of the benefits of being a parent if you work from home. You will be able to set your own schedule, so the next time one of your children has a doctor’s appointment you won’t have to listen to your boss complain about your need to leave work a little early. You will be able to establish your own workload (more or less), so if your family decided to go on vacation or take a holiday you would be able to arrange your schedule accordingly so that you did not have to accept a cut in pay. All in all, working from home would be absolutely perfect.

Or would it?

The Cons

Okay, so working from home can seem like a godsend to the frazzled mom who has had enough of office life; however, there are a number of disadvantages to working from home that you should be aware of before you decide to throw in the towel. First and foremost, unless you are really lucky or you use a scam-free work from home job website like moneyfromhome.net, you may face the choice of either starting your own business or attempting to freelance your services. Both of these are risky ventures, neither is going to provide you with any significant amount of job security, and both are going to require a period where you are attempting to establish yourself and therefore will not have much profit coming in. The advertisements you see on the Internet that claim to be able to help you to make thousands of dollars within a matter of weeks don’t tell you the whole story; those individuals that do are the exception rather than the rule, and they have often put an incredible amount of time and money into their efforts.

Alongside the strain that establishing a career working from home may place on your finances (for a while, anyway) is the fact that attempting to work from home with small children underfoot can be the rough equivalent of attempting to scale Mount Everest barefoot without a rope. Virtually impossible! Remember that regardless of what preconceived notions you may have about working from home, your children are going to require as much of your attention when you are at home working as they do when you are not; in other words, however your kids act when you’re home for a day off is how they’re going to act when you’re home working! Having said that, some kids become more secure, less demanding, and require less attention when they begin getting the level of attention that they need.

Plan on spending many nights staring at your computer screen for hours after your children have gone to bed because you weren’t able to finish your daily quota while they were awake, and many mornings attempting to feed the baby with one hand while checking your e-mail with the other because it is the only time that your spouse is available to help you. You should also probably plan on seeing a little less of your spouse during what used to be your free time, at least until both you and your children have had the opportunity to settle into a new routine that allows you to work during the day; you are going to need that time when they’re available to lend a hand in order to get done what you need to get done.

The Verdict?

If you’ve finished reading the above and you still want to try working from home then good for you! There is nothing to compare with the moment when everything finally starts flowing smoothly and you’re able to sit at your computer in the middle of a hard day’s work and watch your children quietly entertaining themselves on the floor at your feet. Nor is there anything like the first time that you get to look at your to-do list and decide to play hooky and take your children to the playground instead. Working from home requires an incredible amount of time and dedication, and there are going to be many times when it seems as though it is more trouble than it’s worth; however, if you stick to it there is nothing like the satisfaction you’ll get from staring at your face in the mirror as you walk around your house in your comfy old sweats in the middle of the afternoon while all of your neighbors are trapped in their stuffy offices in their stuffy suits and their uncomfortable shoes and think, “I did it!”

Renee Malove works from home as a full time writer for a number of websites and e-zines based in countries all over the world.